Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1887-02-06
WONDERS OF HYpNOTIsM.
What People can be Made to do Under
Strange influence.
Nel0 York HeruLd.

Ne0 York HerLd.
II hypnotized one man." said DIR. HAM
mond, land / forced him tn commit for
gerry. At my bidding he signed my name
TO a blank cheek. / told him to cash it at
the bank-[a ch%airl-and he did so.
Now you have the money" said |, and
he rammed it in his pocket, looking all
around meanwhile, cOyertly and sus-
~pieiously. Suddenly 1 cried police"
The patient instantly darted under the
table and tried to hide himself. He turned
even paler, trembled, and eVinced every
sign of extreme trepidatiOn.
"He denied strenuously at first" con-
tinued DIR. Hammond, that he had been
guilty of the crime / charged him with. l
insisted that he had the money in his
pocket. At last he confessed, drew it
forth, and broke into expressions Of
for his faar pas. All this, rs | told you,
before the New York Neurological Society
"a scientific body.
IL experimental further with this sub
ject, for he was a good one. Pinching the
flesh on the back of his hand into a little
bunch and telling him that he would suffer
nothing | plunged a knife through the
cone of cuticle. Not a tremOr or start
showed that he experienced pain; he did
not, indeed, feel the blade. Nor was he
sensitive to red-hOt iron when | burned
the hack of his neck with it; but when |
cried, Now I'll burn you, and place my
finger on his flesh, he jumped, and yelled,
and writhed as If he were in torture. /
could do any thing with that man. / gave
him a solution of alOeS and he drank il for
champaign. gave him a bottle, told
him it was a baby, and he nursed it and
cOOed over it.
"HypnOtism appears to he a condition
into which certain persons are capable of
passing, and during which they lose to
great extent the faculty of originating
ideas and become more or less subject to
the will of other persons. Any one can
influence a hypnotic subject. | may not
be able to influence you, you cannot in
fuence NE, but both of us could influence
a subject. Sometimes it's enough to cry,
There, it's all done and the subject falls
into the hypnotic state.
brand, in his 'NeurypnOlogy,' say:
Take any bright object between the thumb
and fOrefinger of the left hand and hold il
from four to eight inches from the eyes OF
the person TO be ~hypnOtized, at IN angle
that will make him strain his eyes 10 see 1t.
lie must regard it with u fixed stare.
Sometimes his eyes will close with a vibra-
tory motion; sometimes they will shut
systematically, and he falls into the
hypnotic sleep.
'"The state has been called artificial SOM
nambulism. Mesmer induced it by strok-
Ing the hands of his subject, Able Favia
by shouting. Barbarin by praying. have
made my subjects fix their eyes upon this
little glass prism from a chandelier. The
monks of Mount AthOs throw themselves
into the state by fixing their eyes on their
well-frd paunches.
"By the by, you read occasionally of
mysterious disappearance, so called,
where people, lost for Il time, turn up,
unable to recOllect where they have been
or to give an account of themselves. Often
they have been in the hypnotic state, and
| will have q paper in the next number OF
the Forum to prove IT.
at Is impossible TO fix 4 limit TO the
capacity of the human mind To he de-
ceived," concluded DR.. Hammond. Take
the case OF Mary loft, a poor woman who
in l72slived in Godalming, Surrey.
She pretended that after a violent long
ing TO eat rabbits n rabbit was born to her,
and she actually persuaded her physician,
Howard, 4 reputable man and 4 practi-
toner for thirty years. that in the curse
Of a month she was blessed with twenty
rabbit children. George |. sent one of
his physicians, AkerS, to investigate the
extraordinary case. Mary TOit convinced
AkerS, who promised to procure a pension
for her. The Kings Sergeant. Surgeon,
st. Andre, brought back two rabbits from
Godalming that had the honor OF being
dissected before his Majesty. Sir Richard
Cunningham, backed by Caroline, Princess
OF Wales, detected the cheat, after threaten
ing Mary with II dangerous operation and
Imprisonment. The woman had hypnO.
TIED the physicians